Boy names that mean wind
Wind is the hardest of the weather meanings to fill honestly. Plenty of names get called windy because they sound quick; only a handful actually contain a word for moving air. This is that handful — a named wind, a gust, a breeze, and the moment the wind stops.
- ZephyrZEF-erGreek
The west wind. Zephyros was the gentlest of the four Greek wind gods, and the word still means a light breeze in English.
- PhongFAWNGVietnamese
Wind — the character 風, the literary word rather than everyday gió. It lives on in phong thủy, feng shui.
- SotaSOH-tahJapanese
颯, the sound of a brisk wind going past, finished with the masculine 太. A gust with a full stop after it.
- NagiNAH-gheeJapanese
凪 sets 止, to stop, inside 風, wind: the lull at sea when the breeze drops and the surface stills. A wind word about wind ending.
- Keanukeh-AH-nooHawaiian
The cool breeze — literally the coolness, ke anu.
- IlmariEEL-mah-reeFinnish
From ilma, air or sky. Ilmarinen, the smith of the Kalevala, hammered out the dome of the sky itself.
- Boraboh-RAHTurkish
A squall; the hard north wind that arrives off the water without warning — the same named wind as the Adriatic bora.
- Ekaitzeh-KYTSBasque
Storm, tempest — the weather system rather than the breeze, and one of the boldest modern Basque names.
- SverreSVER-rehNorwegian
From Old Norse sverra, to swing, whirl or spin; traditionally glossed as restless or wild. The whirling, not the wind that causes it.
- Ayazah-YAHZTurkish
The still, hard frost that settles under a clear night sky. Air rather than wind, and worth knowing before you choose it.
- Samirsah-MEERArabic
Two names share this spelling. Arabic Samir is a companion in evening talk; Indian Sameer is Sanskrit samira, wind or breeze.
Named winds, gusts, and air
Winds with names. Zephyr and Bora are both particular winds rather than wind in general — the west wind of Greek myth and the cold northeasterly that comes down off the Dinaric mountains onto the Adriatic. Naming a child after a specific wind is an old habit and a surprisingly rare one.
The gust and the breeze. Phong is the flat noun, Sota is a short sharp one, Keanu is the cool air that comes off a Hawaiian slope at evening, and Nagi is the wind ending. Japanese builds that last one out of wind and stop in a single character, which is as neat as etymology gets.
Air, and near misses. Ilmari means air rather than wind; Ayaz is still frozen air; Sverre is the whirling motion, not the weather; Samir only means breeze in one of the two languages that spell it that way. All four are on this page with the qualification attached, because the alternative is padding the list with names that merely sound fast. For the weather that wind arrives with, see storm.